CBRE

Cecile Blanco is Marketing Director, Americas Retail at CBRE, where she leads strategic marketing initiatives that drive business growth, brand differentiation and client engagement. Passionate about inclusive leadership, innovation and collaboration, she champions customer-centric marketing while helping teams embrace change and emerging technologies.

The Best Ideas Aren’t Always the Loudest

The principle I keep coming back to is making sure every voice is heard. Some of the best marketing ideas come from people who don’t seek the spotlight, a reserved junior marketer, a new person on the team or a colleague who needs time to gather their thoughts before sharing them.

My ideal working environment is one where the conditions exist for all perspectives to surface with an inclusive space for the best thinking to come forward, wherever it comes from. The more perspectives in the mix, the more resonant the messaging and the more creative the outcome.

From Cost Center to Growth Engine

Real estate marketing has undeniably evolved from a cost center to a growth engine. The biggest shift is where marketing lives in the funnel. We used to be called in at the bottom, at the point of sale (business development pursuits, pitches and the materials to support that).

Today marketing shapes the entire journey, from the first moment of brand awareness through the deal and beyond with property marketing. The focus has expanded to the full customer journey. In Retail and across sectors, that has meant a real investment in thought leadership and content, like our Retail Reframed newsletter that keeps us in front of clients between deals, along with building brand equity and product differentiation, elevating events and client experience and strengthening our digital presence so our website brings in leads and our social channels engage with our audience.

As far as staying relevant, the key is to position marketing as a true business partner, not a service provider. That requires understanding the business almost as deeply as the people running it, anticipating what the business needs and bringing a clear point of view to the table. The marketers who thrive are the ones who stay close to business priorities and align their strategic marketing plans directly to them.

Balancing AI with Human Creativity

Every few years, new technology reshapes our field: the web, mobile, social and now AI. The tool always changes. The challenge today is integrating this new capability without losing the human craft. Data and emerging tools are ultra-powerful. They can help us move faster, but they can’t replace our judgment, taste or the creative instinct that makes outputs or campaigns memorable.

“Your value isn’t the sum of what you produce. It’s the judgment you bring, the relationships you build and the perspective only you can offer.”

I think the risk is leaning so hard into what’s measurable that what’s meaningful gets lost. And today the bigger challenge is one of adoption and scale. The tools are here, both our own proprietary platforms and the powerful off-the-shelf options on the market. We’re in the thick of it right now, and the landscape is evolving every day. It’s about rolling out tools in a way that makes sense and scaling them across the organization.

I would add that just as important is carving time for training because the value of any tool is only realized when teams know how to leverage it well.

Breaking Down Silos to Drive Innovation

In a large, matrixed organization, nothing meaningful happens in isolation. It’s a cliché, but working in silos simply doesn’t work. It is a challenge we still have to tackle every day. Collaboration isn’t optional, and genuine relationships across the organization are what make everything else possible.

Innovation is best proven through tangible wins rather than grand declarations. Think small successes that build momentum and credibility. When people see that a new approach actually works, saved time, drove engagement or won business, then adoption follows naturally. In a complex organization, the most durable change is the kind that spreads because people want it, not because they were told to.

Success Is Built One Step at a Time

For those driven to achieve: don’t tie your worth to your output. I am still working on it. For much of my career, value felt measured by how much I produced, the volume, the quality, the constant delivery and always the novelty of something newer and better. It’s a hard habit to break. But over time it becomes clear that your value isn’t the sum of what you produce. It’s the judgment you bring, the relationships you build and the perspective only you can offer. The other piece of advice is one of my favorite sayings: “There is no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs.”

It’s tempting to look for the fast track, especially for a new generation entering a very fast-moving, digital world that rewards speed. But I think the climb itself is the point. Every step - the projects, the setbacks, the lessons along the way - builds the skills, resilience and perspective that a long career is made of. Staying successful means remaining a constant student, keeping a growth mindset and adapting to change all the time.